Eight honoured at first ever startup festival

DesignBold, a design application, overcame GotIt! (47 percent) wins the most important award, Startup of the Year award (Photo genk.vn)

Hanoi (VNA) - Eight startups received awards in five categories at the
2016 Start-up Festival in Hanoi on December 29.

The categories were Startup of the Year; Women’s Startup, Bluebird IT Startup,
Potential Startup and Most Favoured Startup.

The
event, which is held for the first time by Vietnam Television’s VTV6, the Vietnam
Climate Innovation Centre (VCIC), Topica Founder Institute and Bluebirds JSC,
is the biggest event for the startup community this year.

The
festival attracted about 1,000 startups.

With
53 percent of voting from 200 delegates, DesignBold, a design application,
overcame GotIt! (47 percent) to win the most important award, Startup of the
Year award.

“We
promise to try our best to bring resources from overseas to support Vietnamese
startups. Receiving the award is an honour for us but also a responsibility. We
set the target to support Vietnamese startups to catch up with other startup
ecosystems in the world,” said Dinh Viet Hung, the CEO of DesignBold.

DesignBold
is a tool that helps both professional and amateur users design by themselves.
It is also the winner of Creative Business Cup Vietnam 2016 and became the
Vietnamese representative for the final round at the Creative Business Cup 2016
in Copenhagen, Denmark in November this year.

The
Women’s Startup Award was given to Vu Nguyet Anh, founder of the dating app
Rudicaf. “For me, this is an honour as well as a great motivation, but also a
pressure to make more efforts in the future,” she said.

The
Most Favoured prize was given to Le Thong Nhat, a retired teacher, for his
BigSchool Vietnam product. Three startups, namely, 1offfice, Giaohangnhanh and
WeFit, won the Potential Startup Award. The prize is a two-week visit to
Israel, dubbed the startup nation.

“I
believe that the spirit of the young generation in Vietnam will boost the startup
ecosystem. In my opinion, it is always better to pursue and try to fulfill your
dream than not to try at all,” said Yaniv Tessel from Israel’s Economic and
Trade Mission.

In
the Bluebird IT Startup category, Mysterious Stone and Suge Dict overcame 200
games and applications to win. They will receive an award of 50 million VND and
an opportunity to visit the Google offices in Silicon Valley.

In
addition, the organisation board gave a prize for the startup event of the year
to the event that the startup community proposed for the amendment of the
Article 292 under the Penal Code.

Article
292 of the Penal Code adopted by the National Assembly last year stirred up
controversy as it was stated that any services offered online or via
telecommunication networks without prior permission would be deemed illegal.
Fearing that start-up businesses could be harmed, a petition calling for the
scrapping of Article 292 was sent to officials, ministers and agencies and
collected nearly 6,000 signatures after only one week.-VNA